White garland-lily

Hedychium coronarium, the white garland-lily or butterfly ginger, is a robust perennial rhizomatous herb in the ginger family (Zingiberaceae). It is native to the eastern Himalayas and nearby regions, including parts of India (Sikkim, Tripura), Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, and southern China (Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangxi, Guangdong) extending to Taiwan. The plant forms erect leafy pseudostems 1 to 3 meters tall from stout horizontal rhizomes. The leaves are alternate, distichous, oblong-lanceolate, 20 to 60 centimeters long with a long acuminate tip, smooth above and finely pubescent beneath, and sheathing the stem at their bases. The inflorescence is a dense terminal spike enclosed in overlapping green bracts; each bract subtends one to three large butterfly-shaped flowers. The flowers are pure white with a yellow patch at the base of the broad, deeply two-lobed labellum, intensely fragrant with a jasmine-like scent, and short-lived. The fruit is a three-valved orange-yellow capsule that splits to reveal seeds wrapped in scarlet arils. The plant grows in moist forest understoreys and along streams and is widely cultivated and naturalised in the tropics.